Ask Slashdot: Linux-Friendly Motherboard Manufacturers?

dotancohen writes "I am tasked with building a few Linux machines for a small office. However, many the currently available motherboards seem to be Linux-hostile. For instance, in addition to the whole UEFI issue, my last install was a three-day affair due to the motherboard reporting a Linux-supported ethernet device (the common RTL8168) while it was actually using a GbE Ethernet device that does not work with the legacy drivers and didn't even work with a test Windows 7 install until the driver disk was installed. There are no current hardware compatibility lists for Debian or Ubuntu and I've received from Asus and Gigabyte the expected reply: No official Linux support, install Windows for best experience. I even turned to the two large local computer vendors, asking if they could provide Linux-compatible machines ready to go, but neither of them would be of any help. What globally-available motherboards or motherboard manufacturers can you recommend today?"

Comments

Raspberry Pi

[recoiledsnake]

I heard the Raspberry Pi is very Linux compatible, in fact it doesn't even run Windows.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[tonywestonuk]

Commenting to remove crap moderation! Pfff....Slashdot, why cant I change my mind!

Re:Raspberry Pi

[NFN_NLN]

"I am tasked with building a few Linux machines for a small office." I'm not sure how much your labor is worth but you can buy a built server on the cheap ($599).

http://www.dell.com/ca/business/p/poweredge-t110-2/pd

Operating System

        Microsoft® Windows® Small Business Server 2011
        Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 Foundation R2 SP1
        Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 SP2, x86/x64 (x64 includes Hyper-V)
        Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 R2 SP1, x64 (includes Hyper-V v2)
        Novell® SUSE® Linux® Enterprise Server
        Red Hat® Enterprise Linux®

Re:Raspberry Pi

[NFN_NLN]

"...my last install was a three-day affair due to the motherboard reporting a Linux-supported ethernet device (the common RTL8168) while it was actually using a GbE Ethernet device that does not work with the legacy drivers"

So how much money did this journey save the company? Just slap in an intel card and be done with it for f's sake! Then it will support proper VLANs, jumbo frames and probably just work smoother than some cheap onboard NIC anyways.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[jedidiah]

...or just buy from a Linux vendor.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[LordLimecat]

Theyre also several times their component cost, and horribly cost-ineffective if you are throwing OSX out the window.

Intel chipsets tend to be supported very well. Generally if you want to know compatibility, dont look @ "is this motherboard supported", just look at whether:
  * The northbridge is supported
  * The southbridge is supported
  * The NICs are supported

Generally Intel stuff is VERY well supported, and GENERALLY year-old chips are supported fairly well. Try to stay away from brand new stuff unless youve done the research to make sure the kernel supports it. Googling something like "Linux support RTL8187" or "linux support P77" should give you some ideas. I wouldnt sweat it too much tho, just pilot one machine and if it goes well roll the config out.

Im not super clear on why UEFI would cause a big issue for a Linux install, but I also havent paid that much attention to it. I have an ASUS UEFI mobo, and I believe it had an option to pretend to be a normal BIOS or something, though Im using Win8 and havent really messed with it.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[ls671]

Because it is a well known fact that forces recrut on /. to pilot drone. You can't change your mind after firing at something. Hence, it is part of the training.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[mspohr]

On rainy days, they don't work well.
In the sun, much better.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[gradinaruvasile]

Also, look out for the audio codecs. Some dont work well with older kernels and ALSA. I have a Gigabyte F2A85X-D3H mobo with A8-5500 APU and i run Debian Testing on it. The stock 3.2 kernel gives an oops at startup and i have no sound. The 3.6 kernel however works just fine. And check the video drivers availability and stability if the board/CPU/APU has built in graphics. For example. Intel has the "best" open source driver support in theory. In practice, for the moment the latest Intel video card drivers are not good (the good stuff is in the latest dev versions and takes quite a bit of time until they trickle down in the stable kernels used by distributions).

Re:Raspberry Pi

[RenHoek]

I thought it was because we Slashdotters are known to never make mistaks.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[tobiasly]

I'm not sure how much your labor is worth but you can buy a built server on the cheap ($599).

Plus you'll be supporting a vendor who "officially" supports Linux. It looks like Dell has their motherboards custom-made by Intel, which is another open-source-friendly company.

If Asus and Gigabyte don't want your money, then don't give it to them.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[aergern]

Stop being a troll. You know full and well that Linux is the server of choice for most large sites. Moron.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[Nerdfest]

Strange, I use 64 bit Linux pretty much exclusively and use quite a lot of 32 bit software, including Flash.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[Smallpond]

Intel has stopped giving out information on memory management configuration like EDAC, and is pushing EFI BIOS control. If you want to own your PC instead of licensing it from Intel it's better to use an AMD processor. Intel NICs are still good though.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[styrotech]

That's an odd post. You seem to have all kinds of in depth knowledge about UEFI boot processes, how Linux screws it up, and how to patch it etc.

But then you don't seem to know some really mundane easy stuff like: Flash actually works just fine* on a 64bit Linux system.

* By that I mean as well as it does on a 32bit Linux system at least.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[dotancohen]

So just to clarify, you are not a "weaker man" because you are choosing a tool that is more difficult to acquire & has no official support... for what purpose again?

Pretty much for KDE and X mouse pasting. There are some mouse pasting solutions for Windows, but none are as good as X. Furthermore, I rely very heavily on many of KDE's small but useful features, such as Keep on Top functionality, the wonderful panel configuration, and some other small features. They add up.

Without knowing more about what the ultimate goal is, it seems like you are just being pig-headed & stubborn, pushing your own personal agenda / Windows vendetta over the priorities of The Company.

Not at all. Everyone already has a Windows computer and now that a new office is opening some people want to use the features that they see me using. This is a case of people wanting to use specific features that they cannot get on Windows, not of some fosstard pushing his ideology on others. Its not even about the cost or security of Windows.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[hairyfeet]

But don't SUSE and RHEL require sever contracts to get updates? that would probably make going the server route not a good deal.

I still think the best bet would be to go AMD AM3, you can get a complete 6 core kit for $260 after MIR and if you can get by with a dual or quad you can shave another $70 or so off that. The board is using the 760 chipset, that is a Radeon 3000 which I'm pretty sure is well supported under the FOSS drivers and I've used these board before and it uses a combo of EFI and BIOS so you don't have to worry about a locked UEFI.

I tried looking for 760 drivers specifically but it looks like its baked in to Ubuntu and most of the popular distros and since the chipset is 4 years old it should be well supported. I'd say its the best bet, supports plenty of RAM, plenty of SATA drives, and it'll run anything from a dual to an octocore so there is plenty of upgrade potential here but with the X6 chips so cheap I'd probably go with the X6, after all when not in use it'll drop the power and speed of half the cores so its like having a fast triple core and when they do need the extra cycles you'll have 6 cores to call on.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[falconwolf]

Except Macs have odd keyboards that are missing keys such as PgUp, PgDn, Home, End, Del/Backspace and have a special "flower power" key which does nothing on Linux.

Reading this I glanced down at my keyboard, I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro, and what do I see? I see Page Up, Page Down, Home, End, and Delete, which is Backspace on Linux and Windows PCs, keys. Now if I hold "fn" while pressing Delete I get the normal Delete. I dual-boot my MacBook, Snow Leopard and Ubuntu 12.04 and I've used the "flower power" when booted into Ubuntu. Without remapping the keyboard. I have not had a problem doing in Ubuntu what I do in Snow Leopard.

Falcon

Intel?

[IceNinjaNine]

Aren't just plain Intel boards, with Intel NICs and Intel HD graphics supposed to be 'out of the box' open source friendly?

Re:Intel?

[jedidiah]

Or just search Google. The reviews on sites like Newegg or Amazon might also indicate Linux friendliness or just the general level of quality. Then there are sites like Phoronix.

In other words: Just search Google. It's not 1996.

Someone mentioned System76. There's also Zareason.

Once again: Just search Google. It's not 1996.

Re:Intel?

[Sparticus789]

My office exclusively uses Intel motherboards (for SecureBIOS) and I have yet to have any compatibility issues with Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, RHEL5, and CentOS.

Re:Intel?

[Jmc23]

Back in 1996 it was extremely simple to search for motherboard reviews and compatability. It's now 2012 and the web is overrun with crappy sites and crappy reviews. Smart people would rather get direct answers from 'qualified' people then wade through piles of garbage, it's not like it's 1996!

Re:Intel?

[jedidiah]

Nonsense. A number of people have noted that various Asus and Gigabyte boards are quite well supported. They have also provided 3rd party sources. I have a couple of Gigabyte boards of my own that I'm very satisfied with.

You might have to do a little homework first but that's hardly a great burden considering that you're obviously building a machine from PARTS.

This whole thing boils down to "I am shopping for motherboards but I am a helpless ninny".

Ready made systems are specifically marketed for people that are unwilling or unable to do the modern equivalent of cracking open a magazine like Consumer Reports.

Easy

[kimvette]

I have yet to try a motherboard which is not Linux-friendly in recent years. Every single server board I have ever tried has worked flawlessly. Every true hardware RAID controller (be it integrated or PCI-X, PCI-E, or PCI) has been supported natively, and software/hybrid/fakeraid controllers have always been supported in JBOD mode. Integrated Intel or Matrox video works fine.

Workstation/desktop boards? Aside from bluetooth, wifi, or weird video chipsets, they are supported fine. Ethernet ports used to require some tweaking (especially for Marvell controllers) but even those enjoy good support. If you want a good, fast board check out the GA-Z77X-UD5H-WB

As far as UEFI is concerned - if you run 32-bit RHEL/CentOS/Scientific Linux, you won't be able to boot the 32-bit disc with UEFI enabled, but why would you forgo the flat memory space of a 64-bit board now that RAM is dirt cheap? Boot 64-bit disc and it works just fine. I have UEFI enabed on my GA-Z77X-UD5H-WB and it is fully supported out of the box by OpenSUSE and both Centos and RHEL 6.3. It's more work to get full support in Linux, actually, because the Linux install Just Works(TM). To boot Windows 7, I had to make a Windows 7 USB key. It booted 64-bit Linux just fine.

Just do a little research.

[dills]

It's all about chipsets. Figure out what chipset a given motherboard has, do a few googles, and you'll likely have your answers.

I have no problem with either of the manufacturers that you mentioned. Were you perhaps trying to do an AMD solution? I'd just stick with Intel chips and chipsets at this point in the game.

This MB worked

[future assassin]

I just built an HTPC and this is what I used for my mb/cpu

MSI FM2-A75MA-E35 mATX FM2 A75 DDR3 1PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 1PCI SATA3 HDMI DVI USB3.0 Motherboard
AMD A8-5600K APU Quad Core Processor Socket FM2 3.2GHZ 4MB 100W Retail Box

works fine here right out of the box with no BIOS settings. I have Linux Mint 14 Mate running on it. The only issue I had was getting audio over HDMI but for some reason downloading and installing the AMD propitiatory drivers wouldn't install Catalyst. I had to go and install the CCC through the package manager. Reboot and audio over HDMI worked.

If you want to stick to the open source drivers and want to have sound over HDMI (if it doesn't work) try this

Edit to /etc/default/grub and add

radeon.audio=1

to

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

To make it look like this
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash radeon.audio=1"

Haven't tried it with my HTPC but did it with my sons laptop. Also with the laptop I had to disable two settings in the BIOS and create an EFI partition but the install of Linux Mint 14 KDE went smoothly an games seem to be running good with the open source drivers.

Canonical does have a compatible/certified list

[agoliveira]

http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/ shows desktops and servers classified by vendor, distro, etc

What?

[Alex Belits]

due to the motherboard reporting a Linux-supported ethernet device (the common RTL8168) while it was actually using a GbE Ethernet device that does not work with the legacy drivers and didn't even work with a test Windows 7 install until the driver disk was installed.

Model and manufacturer, please! Sounds like bullshit to me.

Re:Hardware to support software?

[h4rr4r]

When vendors don't publish drivers or specs how is that supposed to happen?

Hardware is dime a dozen these days. If I can't run the OS I want on it, I will not buy it.

Save yourself some trouble...

[dclozier]

I have found that building such systems myself will end up costing a bit more because I cherry pick better components all around when less powerful options would have sufficed. If this is for an office setup and you're the one that's going to end up doing support for them then you'll want to know what's inside. If you can afford it though it would be better to pass this support issue over to someone else that's already doing desktop linux like System76 - Desktops.

Re:It's about components on the board

[h4rr4r]

You should really be getting intel NICs pretty much no matter what. Dell sells them as an additional cost for a reason. The reason being broadcom sucks.

Re:MS controls the purse strings

[RabidReindeer]

If Microsoft demands it, motherboard makers will fall in line in order to stay in business.

This probably also signals the beginning of the end of Microsoft.

Mighty empires always fall.

There's wholesale motherboards and retail motherboards. Wholesale motherboards are mostly destined for name-brand computers where MS-Windows will be pre-bundled.

However, when you buy retail, I'd venture that a lot of those motherboards have to be Linux-friendly, because Windows doesn't come "free" with them the way it does with mass-market computers and therefore I'd expect a much higher percentage of such motherboards to be destined for non-Windows machines, and since I have grave doubts about them becoming Apple machines, that leaves Linux as pretty much the largest market left.

In any event, so far Asus, Shuttle, MSI and BioStar have all worked fairly well for me. Occasionally an integrated peripheral will be problematic, but as far as it goes, I really wouldn't expect top-of-the-line integrated peripheral support from a retail mobo even on Windows. Especially considering what the Windows device driver development process has become.

Any Intel Z77 motherboard

[AliasMarlowe]

According to Phoronix, the Intel DZ77GA-70K and the ECS Golden Board Z77H2-A2X are fine for Linux. It is implied that almost any motherboard with the Intel Z77 chip set should be OK for linux. They did a longer follow-up review on the ECS Z77H2-A2X Ultimate Golden Edition Extreme with linux.

what?

[Osgeld]

how the hell do you make such a huge mountain out of a molehill?

AMD, Intel, Nvidia, Realtech, VIA

all have been supported in linux as system chipsets for a long fucking time, where the hell are you getting these crackhead mobos you speak of?